Gregg Nations maintains ‘Lost’ bible

Script coordinator keeps consistency in chaos

Among all the gasp-worthy revelations during the first 100 episodes of “Lost,” a certain level of astonishment needs to be reserved for one.

Until the end of the first season, no show bible tracked all the intricacies that exec producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were laying out in the series.

Better late than never, Cuse brought in someone who would actually make sure all the plot and character details meshed. And so, when it comes to getting your “Lost” questions answered, no one has more information on hand than script coordinator, co-producer and bible-keeper Gregg Nations.

“You just have to stay on top of it, that’s for sure,” Nations says of his “no details too small” responsibility. “Sometimes things can get away from you, and it just takes time to wrangle them in.”

Having grown from a simple word-processing document, which Nations would email the writers, into something rivaling “War and Peace” in size, the “Lost” bible itself no longer gets printed out — for which the environment breathes a big “thank you.”

Instead, Nations stores copies of it on several computers and answers questions as they come. With time travel becoming a feature element of the series, the questions have come more quickly than ever.

“This season, there was more time spent with working out the timeline,” he says. “I’m also trying to help production out by giving department heads and the script supervisors the timeline breakdown and tracking when certain things have been done in the past.”

Nations admits that if he had it to do over again, he would have created a database for the bible, but that ship has left the island. However unwieldy his bible might be, it has helped all the loose ends from earlier seasons make perfect sense now — illustrating to doubters that Cuse and Lindelof had everything figured out all along.

“It is nice to see this come together and know that there was a plan,” he says. “Hopefully, this means people will have more faith that they can sit back and not be so anxious, and enjoy it.”

Nations declines to speculate about whether, after the series leaves the air in 2010, the bible will be published in its entirety.

“Since ABC owns it, it would really be up to them,” he says. “I don’t know if even Damon and Carlton would want that to be done. There is a certain (argument) that some mysteries should be left to be mysteries.”